Category Archives: Slicing

My son is named Sagan, after Carl Sagan. Over here in the U.S., that’s a unique name. As a result, he won’t be going into gas stations or souvenir shops and finding mass produced keychains and trinkets with his name on it.

Luckily, I have the MakerGear M2. I am not bound to get what someone else has decided to design and make. I can make it myself!

In my son’s pre-K class, a vast majority of the students are in the same boat– most of them have unique names. This seemed like a great use for the flexibility of a 3D Printer.

The Design
The design is not especially ground breaking. Hey, it’s a little heart pendant/medallion with a name on it. I printed most of it in ColorFabb Traffic Red PLA/PHA (duh) and then the detailing and the name are in GlowFill. One thing I have noticed with my kids is they LOVE glowing things. They love taking it into the bathroom and turning off the lights to see it glow.

Modeling – Blender
The base model I did in Blender. I started with a Bezier Curve. I used the Mirror modifier to make it symmetrical.

I converted the curve to a Mesh.

I did a little cleanup of the Vertices, by Merging a couple of oddly mirrored vertices to the center.

The detailing of my design, I wanted an outline of a heart in GlowFill. I’ve worked with hearts in the past and I knew that just scaling another heart down wasn’t going to do the trick. Inset is key to that!Scaling Versus Inset – Inset Will Give You Consistent Widths

I did an Inset of my face and did some manual cleanup of the vertices.

After that, it was just straight Extrusion to the heights I wanted.

The hook was just a cylinder subtracted from another cylinder (courtesy of the Boolean Modifier). I decided to keep the hook separate in case anyone wanted to print just straight up hearts.

At the end of my Blender session– I had two .STL files — my heart and my hook to make it a medallion.

Modeling – OpenSCAD
Although I had experimented with Python scripting for Blender roughly a year ago, OpenSCAD seemed easier and quicker for me. There is an Import command in OpenSCAD where you can pull in STL files. I went ahead and brought my Blender STL files into my OpenSCAD project and set a variable name for the “Child’s Name”. I was then able to rapidly run through and create 17 models for all my son’s classmates.

GlowFill
From 1.1 – 1.7mm, I printed in ColorFabb GlowFill. I printed those in 0.10mm heights. Usually I have found with detailing 3 or 4 layers were sufficient. In this case, because the GlowFill was a little translucent, going up to 6 and 7 layers made sure the text appeared more crisp and white. (It also gave me a little more leeway to recover if an edge came unstuck from the build plate).

Quick Tip
And a quick tip. Sometimes parenting is harder than 3D Printing. When I printed my first batch of hearts, I was quite pleased. I showed my son and was ready for a positive response. It did not go well. I..uh… I kinda didn’t include his name in the first batch of hearts. He can read and he was quite miffed when he did not see his name. Luckily, I started an emergency print and was able to get back on his good side. But you can avoid such drama. Make sure to print your kids’ in the first batch. : )

On Thingiverse!
If you covet a heart for Valentine’s Day or a special occasion, I was able to make a Customizer on Thingiverse. Feel free to make your own.

I butted into a conversation in Twitter today (That’s socially acceptable right? I hear it’s the cocktail party of the Internet) and the question came up how to get the Maker Gear M2 to run some filament before the print.

Well, since I do a lot of material changes within prints, that is something I do know how to do.

Simplify3D – Jog ControlsYou can tell your printer to do all sorts of things in the Machine Control Panel section of Simplify3D. For that, you would:

Click on Tools->Machine Control Panel.

And then you can go to the Jog Controls Tab.

There is an Extrude section, where you can tell the printer to extrude out 0.1mm (tiny, tiny!), 1mm, 10mm, 100mm. I am typically using the 10 or the 100 button.

Tip: If you already have a print on the bed, I put a piece of paper over it so it doesn’t get messed up with the extruded filament.

Gotcha: The printer has some built in safeguards– it won’t do a “Cold Extrude”. It won’t extrude unless the nozzle is heated up. If you are hitting those Extrude buttons and the printer is not listening to you, it may be that it isn’t heated up yet. (The G-Code command M302 supposedly turns off the Cold Extrude safeguard, but I have never tried it)

Simplify3D – Custom Starting Script G-Code

Simplify3D allows you to set up custom code for various stages of your print, including the start up. To edit those, you would:

Double click on your setting profile in the bottom left hand corner

Click on the Scripts tab

Click on the Starting Script tab

For all my simple prints, I use the stock Starting Scripts that came with the Simplify3D Default Profile for the MakerGear M2 (24V vb3 Hot End) (I do customizations for my multistep prints)

Simplify3D -G-Code Via Communication Tab
Want to be a little more hard code than the Machine Control Panel tab, but don’t want to commit to a change to your Starting Script? You can also send direct G-Code commands to your printer by:

A friend of my brother’s passed away last week. He was in his thirties, so it was an unexpected death. Last night, my sister-in-law texted to see how soon I could 3D Print something for the funeral. She wanted a Sheriff’s Badge with one request– that it simply read “Fun Police”.

Thanks to Thingiverse, OpenSCAD, and Simplify3D, I was able to turn around her request fast.

Thingiverse and OpenSCAD
Thingiverse had a lot of Sheriff Badges to choose from. I went with the design by Bichiatari. I liked the standard six star approach and bonus– it was in OpenSCAD, which I taught a class on last June! I used his base code to make some slight alterations:

I made the points of the stars spheres to give it a more three dimensional look.

I changed the font to “Rockwell Extra Bold”. I liked the look of the text and I liked how thick the letters were

And finally, I changed “Sheriff” to “Fun Police”.

Original Model

Simplify3D
Now, when I was done, the points of my stars did extend below the base of the star thanks to the spheres.

I didn’t want to print those sphere bottoms

For my first trial run, I didn’t go to the trouble of making that flat in OpenSCAD. I just flattened the bottom when I sliced in Simplify3D. I simply changed the Z offset, so the bottom part of those spheres were below my build plate, so those parts wouldn’t print. A nice handy trick.

I also felt the proportions were a little off, so I scaled just the height of the object down so it was only 6mm high.

Hack with Simplify3D – Changed my Offset To Lower the Object Down

Rev 2
The first print was okay— and I bet they would have been satisfied with it. I didn’t like how the “E” at the end of “POLICE” printed out and I thought it would be a better use of real estate to make the letters bigger.

The First Print Had a Messed Up E

So I went back into OpenSCAD and made some changes:

I put “FUN” on one line of text and “POLICE” on another

I made the text bigger.

I resized my object down to 4mm high

Finally, I went ahead and chopped off the bottom of those spheres so it would all lay flat

For those interested in the code, the full OpenSCAD code is below.

As far as the second print— I liked it much better. I used the MakerGear Silver PLA filament.

A few weeks ago, I prepped a bunch of birds in Simplify3D and when it started, I noticed one of my birds was only half on the bed. It struck me as odd, because I thought I saw your bed size in the settings.

“You’d think it warn me,” I thought.

Since then I’ve been very conservative with my plating so as to make sure to stay well within my print bed.

Yesterday, all of a sudden I had a breakthrough moment. In my preview screen, if I check Build table under Show In Preview, there I have a lovely visual of my actual bed.

And now that that’s on, when I got back to plating, that visual is still there.

This is proving to be super handy. Now I’m able to fill my bed up to its full capacity.

In preparation of the craft fair, I have a goal of printing 10 items each weekday. If I’m printing birds, particular small birds like a chickadee or finch, BAM. I can meet my craft fair goal in a single run!

Ruby-throated Hummingbird
On Tuesday, I welcomed Archilochus colubris (Ruby-throated Hummingbird) to my 3D printed aviary. He was designed in Blender (based off a Creative Commons photo by my husband) and printed in the MakerGear M2. I used four different Simplify3D processes to print four colors– White, Traffic Red, Mint Turquoise, and Black.

Overthinking the Color Order
Originally, I was printing Red, White, Green and then Black. My thought process was I wanted that White directly underneath the green, so it could be as bright as possible. I was worried if I printed green right on top of the red, it would appear brown.

So I did Red, White, Green and Black…. and I found myself very distracted by the Red outlines to the whole bird.

I switched them up. I printed White, Red, Green and then Black. With the first layer, it does look like my worse fears are realized– the bird is a pretty icky brown.

But I have four layers of green (at 0.10mm each) and by the time it finishes all those layers, the green layer looks just as green as it does over the white. It made no difference whatsoever… for my ColorFabb Mint Turquoise. It is possible my translucent filaments from MakerGear (Grey and Orange) may be a different story.

Multi-processes to the Rescue!
I discovered that running Simplify3D’s multiprocesses one at a time are good for more than changing colors. It does give you an opportunity to recover should a mishap occur. In this case, one of my hummingbirds came unstuck to my bed. My attempts to glue stick him back on failed, so every time my extruder hit that blank spot it was making a nice spaghetti mess of filament (Side note– it is impressive to see how little filament actually goes on a layer– no wonder why my filament spools last forever).

Luckily, since I was running multi-processes, once my base layer of White finished, I had the opportunity to go into Simplify3D and remove the troublesome hummingbird (being VERY careful not to hit that Center and Arrange button). I exported my new processes to my SD card and that allowed me to not have to waste any more time on the MIA hummingbird.

Occoquan Craft Fair Preparation
I also got my application in for the Fall Occoquan Arts and Crafts Show on September 26th and 27th! I’m hoping to be their inaugural 3D Printing booth. Although I have no reason to worry about my acceptance into the show, meh, I still do worry a little bit, so I’ll be happy to hear back from the show director.

In the meantime, we are still preparing. My entire family is pitching in. Ryan is locating a tent and table and getting us a credit card processing solution. My brother, a small business owner, has been helpful in the business side of things. My Mom, as always, is a huge asset. Even my children are helping! They help with “Market Research” and young Sagan has mastered preparing my filament for color switches. : )

On my end, an entire wall of my office is covered in Post In Notes of ideas and action items. My evenings are spent modeling and slicing, so I can make sure the MakerGear M2 has stuff to do while I work during the day.

And our dining room table is currently a staging area of potential products.

Tethered by Filament Change
First thing in the morning, I started a print run of some coasters. This time I was etching in this lovely Creative Commons Celtic Dragonfly by blah_59. After the first 2 millimeters, I was going to change colors for the top. It was after the print I realized……

Starbucks Day

On Fridays, I usually take my kids out to breakfast at Starbucks. The timing of my filament change was totally going to muck up Starbucks Day. I wanted to be around to pause my print and switch colors.

Compromise. My oldest son and I ran to Dunkin Donuts and picked up a special breakfast and brought it home. I was deprived of my weekly Flat White, but boy, the kids didn’t care one bit. They loved eating Dunkin Donuts on the deck.

All was well and I ended up with my glowing Celtic Dragonfly Coaster.

But it was a sign that I needed a better process. I’m a working mother. It isn’t going to be sustainable for me to be tethered to the printer waiting for the exact moment to change my filament.

3D Printing Nerd to the Rescue
I thought my solution was going to lie in adding custom G-code, but it turns out I don’t even need to do that! I just so happened to watch the latest video from the 3D Printing Nerd that very same morning. He also does a lot of creations by switching filament colors and he also uses Simplify3D. I mentioned yesterday and we saw it before with some experiments with the cardinal wing that I do use multiprocesses to change my settings for different sections of the print. Well, I never thought about the implications of running those multiple processes one at a time. I had always let them run as a single print run, meaning I still would have to monitor and pause my print when I wanted to switch colors.

The 3D Printing Nerd’s video showed me to run them one at a time. So when the printer finishes one color it stops and then waits for you to take the next steps…on your time.

I gave it a test run on my new Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata). It worked splendidly. I ran the white. I ran the blue. I ran the black. Wonderful! This is just what I needed to keep my sanity and prepare for the Occoquan Arts and Craft Fair.

I did notice one tiny best practice for the future. When I start a new color, the print runs through it usually start up process (which I can change if I want). It squirts out some plastic off the side of the bed and then it swipes the nozzle clean on the bed. When I ran a bed full of bluejays, I did notice I put one a little too close to that swiping action. He was just barely getting knicked by the nozzle as it passed by. So either I not place things that close to that section… or I change my start up G-Code.

I’m really excited. A HUGE thanks to the 3D Printing Nerd for helping me improve my process. It’s really going to help as my collection of birds continues to grow!

My intent when I woke up in the morning was to do my reprint of the Mobius Strip USB Holder. As I perused reddit over my morning coffee, however, I found a delightful little tangent– Sharkz from Thingiverse user Murray Clark. It’s a small object, so it is a fast print. It prints without supports and it moves. It can function as a little bag clip…or clothes hangers…or I even saw one maker using them as clip on earrings.

I have a four year old and a two year old and imaging their faces playing with the Sharkz was just too tempting to resist. The four year old in particular. He’s a Sharknado fan. : )

Simplify3D Settings
My print settings were really straight forward. Nothing fancy at all. In fact, I pretty much stole everything from the Thingiverse Instructions tab. They recommended 4 perimeters and an Infill of 60% to give the Sharkz a sturdy bite. They also recommended a layer height of 0.2 mm. Easy peasy.

Bridging Speed Multiplier – 125% (This should come out to 6000 mm/min which is 100mm/second)

Confirming Bridging Settings
Since bridging was going to be key to the Sharkz’s jaw movement, I used my little hack to make sure my bridge settings were going to take effect. I temporary set my Bridging Speed Multiplier to 600%. I did a preview. The preview color codes by the print speed, so that made my bridge areas bright red. I changed it back to 125% and printed away.

Sharkz = Fun
The bridges worked well and our little sharks do have quite a bite. They proved to be fun for the whole family, including my 69-year old mother.

I’m a web programmer by trade and back circa 2007 and 2008, Cascading Style Sheets were becoming mainstream… and had their learning curve and their fair share of frustrations. There was a website that poked fun at the struggle of trying to do your page layout entirely by CSS. It was aptly called GiveUpAndUseTables.com. The site is long gone, but thanks to the Way Back Machine at Archive.org, I can still share a visual. They recommended after 47 minutes you:

Quick order of business– in my print diary posts, settings and strategies are not necessary solid conclusions, just a documentation of what I tried and my observed results.

My programming day job was going to be exceptional busy, so I needed some more hands-off experiments. One of the things I covet with my new hoarding tendencies is a rock tumbler to polish my bronzeFill.

“But we have a rock tumbler,” my husband said. He pointed to a free one we got from our neighbor a few years ago. The one sitting on a book shelf in behind a commemorative Star Trek plate collecting dust. The thing is– it’s for kids and not at all like the fancy rock tumbler in the Barnacules Nerdgasm video. And the barrel is tiny!

I designed it for my favorite Brony‘s birthday this past January. It looks amazing in Shapeways’ Stainless Steel.

Back in April when I first got the MakerGear M2 I had run through several runs and iterations perfecting the Di in Black PLA. I did end with something I was satisfied with. But I wanted to resurrect the experiments with a couple of changes:

Back then I was concerned with the shininess of the bottom layer and how it looked so different from the rest of the die. I ended up using a raft to give it a similiar texture and feel. Don’t need that anymore. If I’m printing in bronzeFill, it’s all going to shine up. This was also back in the day before I discovered how amazing hairspray and the gluestick is. Another reason I can ditch the raft.

Back then I was using Slic3r. I tend to user Simplify3d nowadays. In my experience, I’ve had better results with bridging with Slic3r than with Simplify3d. So my experiments were an ongoing effort to try to improve my bridging in Simplify3d.

Some odds and ends of the past couple of days.

New Slic3r is Beautiful!
I went ahead and used this as an excuse to download and use the new 1.2.9 version. My impression is positive. The new 3D View is lovely, but I’m most pleased to see the new “Layer” and “Preview” views. The Preview view is of particular interest to me as I like to scrutinize print lines and patterns.

Now, I did end up crashing new Slic3r three or four times. My hypothesis is that I was changing multiple settings in a row while it was trying to regenerate it’s previews. That’s not a conclusion– just a hunch.

Cooling, You Idiot!
I mentioned I have had better luck bridging (and sometimes overhangs) in Slic3r than Simplify3d. A few months ago, I opened both and started scrutinized settings and trying to get my Simplify3d to match my Slic3r results. Because I’m anal, I took screenshots and made notes of the changes and why I tried them. Well, I pulled up Cooling and I made NO changes and I wrote down that I had made no changes.

Back then, I hadn’t realized the extent cooling played a role, specifically in overhangs. I would learn that when I mastered the 3D Hubs Marvin.

Under Fan Overrides, I checked Increase fan speed for layers below and changed the seconds from 45 to 60

Under Fan Overrides, I checked Bridging fan speed override.

Note– Since my Fan Speed is already 100 for everything after the first layer, I do not expect any change from my Fan Overrides section. (But the settings are in place should I tweak fan settings at a later date).

I have a feeling the Speed Override alone would have made my 3D Hubs Marvin endeavor a whole lot easier. The jury is still out on that, however, as I haven’t tested him out. : )

Simplify3D Bridging Hack
I also have a new version of Simplify3d which I had been hoping would fix a perimeter bridging issue I had noted. Quick tip, if you ever want to see where the Bridging Settings are taking effect set your Bridging Speed SUPER high– like 600%.

Then when you preview your layers, those items are color coded in red and orange. Unfortunately, that revealed that my bridging settings were still not taking effect where I wanted them.

In the case of my dice, I had a lucky workaround. My perimeters of the bottom face were doing okay. It was the infill that was drooping and sagging. There were only two places on the dice considered “Solid Infill”. So I changed my Solid Infill speed to match what I wanted for the Bridging Speed.

And I could see that bottom layer was going to print at a faster “bridge” speed.

This doesn’t help with things like the Bridging Extrusion Multiplier, but guess what– in the case of my dice, it was enough! I got my satisfactory results.

P.S. I could have always gone with supports. I was just being stubborn.

So at the end of these experiments– I have a handful of dice to run through our el cheapo rock tumbler. Wish me luck!

Amateur Hour
My morning print could be aptly described as “amateur hour”. I decided to make another stab at my two color cardinal. I had a busy workday, so the print wasn’t my top priority and I did note my filament had come uncoiled as I put it on the machine, but I didn’t think much of it. I got the print started, confirmed the first layer was going well and then I directed my attention to some programming projects.

All of a sudden I noticed the infill of the cardinal, which is usually quite smooth, was very much NOT so.

It was shortly there after, I noticed that all those loose coils had worked themselves in a nice, extruding-thwarting, knot.

I was able to undo the knot and the print resumed. Now, I have seen first hand how the quality and quantity of the infill can impact your top layer.

I was printing at 0.10 mm layers and at this point, I knew I had enough layers for my bird to recover. I felt that he would still end up with a smooth body and head. And I was right! Sure enough, layer by layer, the surface smoothed out and was looking rather fine.

But then…. ANOTHER KNOT.

Seriously! I let the exact same thing happen AGAIN. You would never guess that I spent 10 years working on Quality Control Software. You would never guess that I have heard of phrases like “corrective and preventative action”. : )

Anyway, at that point, I was just two layers away from one of my visible surfaces. I knew the bird would not recover.

But I let the print continue.

Failures in life (and 3D Printing) can also be “Learning Opportunities”. In this case, I wanted to see how my wing detail later in the print would look. It didn’t matter how shabby the rest of the bird looked. I would still be able to assess whether my “peeks of black” were going to be effective in the wing. The overall print would be a fail, but I would still gain some knowledge.

Experiments with Wing Detail
Later in the afternoon, I decided to give the cardinal another whirl. This time I made sure I wasn’t sloppy with my filament. And to keep the learning going with the print, I decided to play with the print lines in the wing.

I remembered seeing the “Owliver Belt Buckle” by Shapeways Designer Michael Mueller in Grey Polished Steel a while back. One of the things that really struck me about the design is how amazingly the print lines added to the feather effect.

Although I was working in plastic, it occurred to me that perhaps my feather detail could also benefit from some changes in the print lines. Perhaps instead of the straight lines on the wing, something like concentric lines that followed the contour of the feather/wing would look nice. But I wanted to keep the body-as in. I wanted to keep the diagonal straight lines there.

Quick synopsis – You use the Cross Section View to determine the actual height of where you want to make setting changes. Then you set up multiple processes (aka Settings). In the Advanced tab you can define the scope of the settings– where they should begin and end.

Quick note– I didn’t test it out in Simplify3d v3.0.0, but in v2.2.2 I had to be careful to turn my fan on for the first layer in my second batch of settings (because it isn’t actually a first layer– it just thinks it is)

Another multiprocess note- I have seen a bug with these multi-processes and rafts. I have not tested to see if it is corrected in v3.0.0

With my wing settings, under the Infill tab, I changed my External Fill Pattern to Concentric.

When the print was done, I was able to decide which External Fill Pattern I liked best in the wing.

Rectilinear

Concentric

Conclusion: The original! I liked the original rectilinear better. Does that mean I wasted my time? Nah… at least now I know*. : )